Cant get the prompt to unlock my passport essential. I have been all over the WD website and tried everything that has been suggested. I don’t want to lose what is on there, but even tried to erase with hopes of using an undelete program to get everything back. won’t even erase. Seeing that this seems to be a global issue, I am suprised no fix has been offered.
Believe me: there IS no fix to this issue.
In my high level discussion with the top customer support official of WD they admitted that incidentally some models autolock themselves, and there is no master password or back door available. The device can not be accessed or repaired and the data are lost. In my case a costly professional data recovery service in Singapore tried it, and reported that all files were badly damaged and corrupted. Only due to that autolock or other mistake caused by a WD firmware update.
[deleted]
WimYogya wrote:
Hi, I have a similar problem: can’t unlock a WD Passport Essential that I NEVER LOCKED! Never used any lock or password. While listening to my iTunes music on that disk, the music stopped suddenly, device was locked as I found out. No help so far from any local technician, 10 supporft mails from WD online support keep repeating they have no master password, I need my password… nonsense… Now finally, in this thread, after a lot of forum googling, I might have found a hint: I dont know the term FIRMWARE but I assume it is something like an operating system update? If I remember well (but no 100% guarantee) there WAS a WD update request while I was working (multitasking: music, editing photos, reading online news etc). I THINK I just clicked ok. The message that ‘this sometimes happens after installing new firmware’ gives some hope. Apparently it happens SOMETIMES, because my 2 other (500GB) WD’s have no problem, only my 1TB one. But more important is the ANSWER: how to get rid of the problem? Any help?
@ WimYogya.
It’s funny how your last post doesn’t even match up to your original post. You quote everything as being our fault, yet you completely overlook what you actually did to destroy your own drive. Who cares that it reports it being locked as a result. That’s only one thing that may happen. Above is your original post over your issue. You say that the drive stopped while you were listening to your music, or editing photos, or reading online news, because you THINK you clicked okay to doing a firmware update - without knowing or understanding what a firmware update is or does, or can do to your drive, if you don’t follow the proceedures correctly.
And that’s exactly what you got, a destroyed drive. Before making us look stupid, maybe you should read what’s required to do a firmware update before you flippantly click an okay button next time. The link below explains the same things you HAVE to do for any of our drives before doing a firmware update.
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/wdsmartwareupdate/firmware.asp?id=wdfMB_Essential&os=WIN
Same problem here! Is there a solution for it???
I dont think I have never updated my firmware in my 3 months of usage!
Isnt there any other option at all other than to format?!?!??!??!
Divyrus wrote:
Isnt there any other option at all other than to format?!?!??!??!
We’re just other users. If WD tech support can’t help you and trying to repair the corruption with disk utilities doesn’t actually repair the corruption, there’s not much any of us can do.
Is there NO solution to this?
I’m having the exact same problem as the original poster: never enterred a password and it’s going straight to the “erase My Passport; too many attempts” prompt.
I’ve tried every suggestion in the thread and none have worked. I never even get a prompt for a password (of which there isn’t one set).
I’m thinking the best solution is to abandon WD forever more…
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I have the 1.5 TB My Book Essential. It has locked me out also. I never set a password for it. A lot of important things I need off of it. I’m a small time music producer that put my trust into this company. NEVER AGAIN!!! I also have a 1TB My Book Essential that just suddenly stop reading on any computer. Thanks a lot Western Digital for possibly destroying my career.
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I can’t blame you for being pissed off, but did you check disk utilities (or disk management) to see if both of the drives show up in there. if so, what does it show?
Ok the 1.5 TB shows up in device manager but I still am not able to access it. The 1 TB shows up in device manager as other devices with a question mark and a yellow exclamation point.
I was asking if the drive shows up in disk management, not device manager. disk management will show the status of the drive’s partition. it’s one way of knowing whether the drive is still there, and maybe still good, but the partition isn’t.
bigmike8651 wrote:
Ok the 1.5 TB shows up in device manager but I still am not able to access it. The 1 TB shows up in device manager as other devices with a question mark and a yellow exclamation point.
Have you tried contacting the WD customer support? They can troubleshoot over the phone and may be able to help you out.
I have the same problem with not creating a password and the WD Mybook essential autolocking. I bought the drive about a week ago. Everything was working fine until I restarted Windows 7 for an unrelated update. I was then unable to access my drive.
The drive shows in the disk manager, but is not assigned a letter, It states that the drive is not initialized and when I try to initialize it, it states that it is write protected. I never so much as had the WD Smartware installed.
So, I installed the most recent version and it asked me for my password. I never had a password, so that didn’t work. I tried the firmware update, but that gives me an “unexpected error” with no further details.
So, I decided to call WD. They said that I had to call back on Monday because their tier 2 people don’t work on the weekends.
Frustrated, I decided to erase… But, now I can’t even do that. I enter the wrong password 5 times and then try to erase, I get an error saying that there was an error and it did not erase.
So, I tried to install an older version of Smartware just to see if that would let me erase. I figured that maybe the newest software version wouldn’t work because I do not have the newest firmware. Now, I enter the wrong pass in 5 times and I don’t even get the option to try and erase.
Can someone please help me at least erase this thing so I can start at square one?
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Same problem here, i bought a 1TB mybook about 2 months ago, set up all the WD software but never password protected it. 2 weeks ago i turned my computer on and instead of reading the WD drive, it didn’t recognize it.
Confused, i took a look and listen to the drive. It was flashing the “lock” light but was clearly working. I checked device and disk manager and was unable to locate the drive. The software i had installed informed me that no mybook was connected.
I tried it on 3 other computers, all are unable to read it. since there is no way to communicate with the locked drive, or a reset on the external itself, the drive is essentaily a paperweight.
I’ve already read the forums and spent over 5 hours on the phone with the WD techs, all of whom try to cagely dodge around the issue that without a PW reset or master, these drives essentially are worthless if they ever decide to lock without a PW established as mine did.
I will never, ever buy a WD hd again, and i will do all in my power to make sure that everyone in the computers department where i work at Best buy never sells one to a customer again. Seagate is about to see a huge boost in sales at our particular best buy.
Thank you for robbing me of 120 dollars Western digital. It was a lesson hard learned, but i now know your companies customer service and production is horrable.
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I have the same promlem with WD MyBook Essential 2Tb - its locked and wont unlock too, but I don’t use that function… This information located on WD not so important for me, its just a media and I want to format it, but…, I dont know password and can’t even format it (I tried to enter wrong password 5 times in a row…).
Can anyone help ? :cry:
Try using a different user account like the guest account or a different PC and see if that helps. It has for a few people.
Joe
thanks, I will try it
Bill,
You know what’s funny? How you’re trying to state that it’s the users fault, and not yours. Did you count how many posts are on here for the same exact issue?? I guess all hard drives locked because people don’t know how to use them properly??? Hope you guys are out of business soon (which is inevitable considering how you conduct business)
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Well, it didn’t help to me 
I still like WD hdds, because it is a 1st time for last 8 years of usage WD hdds when i have a problem like that. I just doubt that my next external hdd will be WD.
I have one more question: can I use that 2Tb Caviar Green in PC w/out it’s controller or I will have the same problem with password ?
Unless you need the password or want the Smartware get an Elements it’s a simple plug and play drive.
Joe
